Chapter 8 A CHOICE
The safehouse smelled like bleach and blood.
Not metaphor. Actual blood. Ivan’s men had redecorated before Kane got here. Words on the wall in Cyrillic:Долг оплачивается кровью; Debt is paid in blood.
Alex was bleeding on their couch. Again.
Mia wasn’t. She was standing 6 feet away with her arms wrapped around herself like if she let go, her ribs would split open. Because they might.
Bond backlash.
It felt like her sternum was wired to a car battery. Every time she looked at him, it jolted. Every time she didn’t, it ached.
This is what choosing does,she thought. This is what human feels like.
You bit him. In the truck. At the border. You climbed in his lap and put your teeth in his throat and for 4 seconds you weren’t Mia Caruso, barista with $4M in inherited debt. You were Luna. You were his. And here you're asking if you're still human? Most definitely not.
Then you remembered the video. Natalie. The heart. The way he ate it and smiled.
Then you remembered your father. The crash. The $4M. The clause: payable in cash or marriage.
Then you remembered you’re 23 and you’ve never even had a boyfriend last 3 months because you panic when people touch your neck._
And now a 35-year-old billionaire werewolf mafia king wants to put his teeth in YOUR neck and call it forever.
Am I human if I want that?
Am I human if I don’t?
“Stop thinking so loud,” Alex rasped from the couch.
His shirt was off. Sweatpants from the gas station. I Paused My Game For This stretched across thighs that could crush a man. Nosebleed dried on his upper lip. Eyes black. Not gold. Not wolf. Just exhausted.
Bond backlash looked like a hangover from hell. For hybrids, it looked like death.
“You can hear me?” Mia’s voice was raw. From screaming at Ivan. From biting. From not biting.
“Not words.” He pressed the heel of his palm to his eye. “Feelings. You’re broadcasting. Like a radio tower of panic and...” He inhaled. Wincing. “Arousal. Fuck, Mia.”
Heat slammed into her cheeks. “I’m not—”
“You are.” No judgment. Just fact. “Mate pull doesn’t care that you stopped. It cares that you started.”
She crossed the room before she could talk herself out of it. Knelt by the couch. Not touching. Not touching.Six inches. The longest six inches in the world.
“Does it hurt?” She meant his nose. His chest. His wolf.
He opened his eyes. Black to gold to black. Flickering. Unstable. “Yeah.”
“Because I stopped?”
“Because you chose to stop.” He turned his head. Looked at her. Really looked. “That’s the difference between feral and claimed, Mia. Feral takes. Claimed asks. You asked yourself first. That’s why it hurts. That’s why it’s working.”
Working.
The Curse of Kings says bond with her and they’ll both go feral.
Unless.
Unless what? Unless she chooses? Unless it’s not forced?
“My dad,” she said. “Marco. You said he owed you $4M.”
Alex went still. The kind of still that meant danger. “He did.”
“Gambling?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Then what?” Her voice cracked. “What kind of debt gets passed to the daughter with a marriage clause,Alex?”
Silence.
Then: “The kind that isn’t money.”
Mia stood. Fast. Bond backlash screamed in her chest. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t give me mafia riddles. Don’t do that cryptic Alpha thing where you stare and brood and expect me to—”
“You want the truth?” He sat up. Too fast. Swore. Gripped the couch. “Fine. Your father was my mother’s Beta. He helped her fake her death. He hid her from the Bratva for 18 years. When Ivan found out, he killed Marco and made it look like a crash. The $4M was the price on his head. I paid it. Then I inherited it.”
The room tilted.
“My father... knew your mother?”
“Loved her.” Alex’s mouth twisted. “She was human. Ivan had her executed for it. Marco got her out. Hid her. She was pregnant with my half-sister. A pureblood heir. Ivan’s worst nightmare.”
Pregnant.
Half-sister.
Pureblood heir.
“So the debt...” Mia’s knees hit the floor. Hard. “The debt is me.I’m not paying cash. I’m paying blood. I’m the leverage.”
“You’re the mate.” Alex slid off the couch. On his knees too. Mirroring her. “That’s why Ivan wants you. Not because you’re Marco’s daughter. Because you’re mine. Because a Luna mated to a hybrid breaks every law he’s built his life on.”
I don’t belong in your world.
Lie.
She’s Luna-tier, born to rule.
Truth.
“Did you know?” she whispered. “When you called me into your office. When you said ‘cash or marriage.’ Did you know I was—”
“No.” His hands fisted on his thighs. Not touching her. “I scented you and my wolf went insane. That’s it. I didn’t know about the Luna markings. Didn’t know about the wolfsbane. Didn’t know you were... you_. I just knew if Ivan found you first, you’d be dead.”
Touch her and die
He’d said it to Natalie at the gas station. He hadn’t said it to her. Not yet.
But he was thinking it. She could feel it. Through the bond. Through the ache.
“So the 30 days,” she said. “It’s not for the debt. It’s for the curse.”
“Yeah.”
“Bond with me, we go feral. Reject me, Ivan takes me and your title.”
“Yeah.”
“Tick. Tock.”
“Yeah.”
Mia laughed. It sounded like breaking. “My whole life was a lie. My dad didn’t die in a crash. I’m not human. I’m not even broke I’m collateral. And you...” She looked at him. Really looked. “You’ve been feral for 5 years, waiting for me.”
His breath hitched. “Who told you that?”
“Your eyes. Right now.”
Silence.
Then he moved.
Not fast. Not wolf-fast. Human-slow. Like he was giving her time to run.
He cupped her face. Both hands. Thumb on her jaw. Where her pulse was going crazy.
“Mia.” Her name. Ruined. Reverent. “I’m going to kiss you now. And you’re going to stop me. Again. Because you’re human. Because you choose. And that’s the only way this works.”
The only way this works.
She should’ve said no. Should’ve stood up. Should’ve walked out.
Instead, she grabbed his wrists. Not to push away. To hold on.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He kissed her.
Not gentle. Not sweet. Starving.
Five years of feral. Five years of waiting. Five years of her.
His mouth was blood and whiskey and mine.His hands left her face, slid into her hair, fisted. Not hurting. Claiming.
The mate pull wasn’t a hook anymore. It was a rope. Around her throat. Around his. Tying them together, tighter, tighter.
MIA
Stop. Stop. Stop.
You can’t breathe. You can’t think. You can’t be human like this.
He tastes like the crash. Like metal and fire and survival.
He tastes like home.
NO.
Home is an apartment with thin walls. Home is 6am shifts and panic attacks. Home is NOT a billionaire’s lap and a death curse._
Choose.
CHOOSE.
She bit his lip. Hard.
Tasted blood. His.
And shoved.
Alex went over. Back hit the floor. Eyes blown. Gold. Lips red.
He was breathing like he’d run a marathon. Chest heaving. Sweatpants doing nothing to hide what she’d done to him. What stopping had done to him.
Mia scrambled back. Hit the wall. Sliding down. “I—”
“Don’t apologize.” He was on his elbows. Not getting up. Not coming closer. Respecting the choice. “Just... tell me why.”
Why?
Because she was 23. Because he was 35. Because he was mafia. Because he was a wolf. Because he’d eaten a heart on video.
Because she was scared.
Because she wasn’t scared, and that was worse.
“Because I’m human,” she said. Voice shredded. “And humans choose. And I choose to not be claimed in a safehouse with Ivan’s blood on the wall while you’re bleeding out from bond backlash.”
Alex closed his eyes. Nodded. Once. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay.” He sat up. Slow. Painful. “You’re human. You chose. That means we’re still in the game.”
He stood. Swayed. Caught himself on the couch.
“Alex—”
“I’m fine.” Lie. “Kane’s bringing the pack doctor. And clothes. And a new SUV.
He walked to the bathroom. Door open. She could see him. Gripping the sink. Head down.
“Alex.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
He met her eyes in the mirror. Gold gone. Black. Human.
“For stopping?”
“For letting me stop.”
His mouth twitched. Not a smile. The ghost of one. “Touch-her-and-die, Mia. That includes me. Especially me.”
He shut the door.
Mia put her head on her knees.
And for the first time since her father died, since the crash, since Alex walked into her life.
She didn’t have a panic attack.
She had a choice.